Why does the Revenue keep trying to pay me?

P.K. writes: I need your help in my unusual dispute with Revenue and Customs – they wish to pay me refunds and grant me tax allowances to which I know I am not entitled. YOU are 73, a retired engineer and teacher, and your tax affairs are straightforward. Out of the blue, you received a claim form from the Revenue, and when you checked your online tax account, it showed you were due a refund of £1,385. This was apparently tax overpaid on your business income – except you have no such income.

After lots of phone calls from you, the tax office deleted the refund from your account. But now the same thing has happened again. You have been invited to reclaim £461, and the Revenue has changed the tax it collects from your pension because, it says, ‘you now get job expenses worth £2,310’. Again, you have tried to alert the tax office to this, but without success.

I asked officials at the Revenue head office to investigate, and they told me: ‘We received an online tax return for a different customer which used an incorrect reference number.’

In short, a firm of accountants with no connection to you has put your tax reference on their client’s file by mistake. Revenue staff have now spring-cleaned your own records and taken steps to make sure the same mistake does not happen again.